Aspera Ad Astra

Republicans vs. Reality (2017Dec12)

There is a limit to objectivity—after the sun rises in the east long enough, you assume it will rise there again, every morning. When, after the airing of Trump’s taped confession of sexually inappropriate behavior, twelve, then sixteen, then eighteen women came forward, they all said, “I can attest to that confession—he treated me in an unwelcome, aggressively misogynistic way—and it made me sick.”—or words to that effect.

The White House’s response to this has been that Trump won the election, and he denied ever knowing any of these women. To the first point, I can only say that an election is not a trial. To the second point—what difference does it make if he knew these women? The whole point of his TV confession was that he accosted strange women willy-nilly—where does ‘not knowing them’ enter into his defense?

And you Trump-supporters are all to blame—not just the voters, but the Republicans in the House and Senate. Did it surprise you?—that electing and supporting a confessed serial mauler of women—made the women in America react more strongly than in any previous age. Or maybe you thought that while dozens of chauvinist pigs are dropping like flies, in entertainment, business, and politics—that everyone would just forget about Trump’s accusers. They were just part of the election, right? Nuh-uh, buddy—these women have serious grievances against our elected president—and there are just so damn many of them.

You can’t just have Senators and Congressmen being ejected left and right (no pun intended) without someone saying, “Hey…. What about Trump?” And even if no one would, once he started backing the accused child-molester Roy Moore, he kinda forced them to do it.

Now, the Republicans have known all this in more depth and accuracy than we civilians who have to sift through the media, as if scrying among chicken guts. Their stalwart support of Trump (who has proven incompetent, unstable, ignorant, divisive, and really, really gross) seems to overlook even the possibility that he might be an agent for Russia. In a way, it’s no great leap for the Republicans to support banned-from-the-mall Moore to join their ranks—after Trump, what can truly be disqualifying to the GOP?

Also, I saw many Republicans trying to get the smear-campaign going on Robert Mueller (who is getting guilty pleas—and getting too close to Trump) in spite of these same people being on tape, from just months ago, lauding Mueller as a great choice—fair, professional, incorruptible.

And today we see the President being virtually obsessive about broadcasting his misogyny—tweeting lurid ravings, insulting Senator Gillibrand, that bear little resemblance to the Gettysburg Address. The fact that Trump prides himself on bearing little resemblance to any other president—is as deeply embarrassing as the pride he takes in tweeting out his twisted, sick mental processes.

No one would claim that the Republicans are stupid enough to swallow their own hogwash—we assume that these are cynical misanthropes who put themselves before country—and knowingly push their alternate-facts reality on the unsuspecting mob. I can’t imagine that most Republicans truly believe that Moore is not a child-molester, that Trump is not a treasonously bad president (and a sexual assaulter), or that their Tax Bill is going to help anyone but themselves and their wealthy donors.

But we can’t totally dismiss the possibility of ignorance. Either way, the entire Republican Party has rode this train all the way—they are all complicit—either in their corruption or their idiocy. Then again, my money is on cowardice.

You see, people without character are weak in many ways—and the most common weakness among them is fear—their fear makes them ambitious, but it also makes them cowards. They only want to succeed because they think they’ll feel safer being a big-shot—they haven’t the slightest interest in good government. My god—look at their platform—they want to destroy this country economically, ethically, and judicially—they are the rot that calls to us from darker times. Resist.